So, the addition of the lovely new kitchen island made me hate the cabinets even more! Truthfully, there was nothing about the kitchen I even remotely liked and I cringed at the idea of posting any pics until I was able to do the remodel. But we decided recently that was not going to happen this year so my wonderful husband announced he was going to take on the task of painting the cabinets…….thinking this would tie me over for another year or so. Before the island, I hadn’t changed a single thing about the kitchen other than removing some wallpaper border & painting ( which is so unlike me) I just thought why bother, nothing’s going to make me like it short of a gut job!

Well I couldn’t have been more wrong!! Now don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty I don’t like about this kitchen as you will see but I must say…..I had forgotten just what an impact a coat of paint can make! So for that reason alone, and hopefully to inspire some readers out there who maybe don’t love their cabinets, I decided to share some before & after pics.

Okay……ughhh….this pains me….. But here’s what the kitchen looked like the day we moved in

See??? I wasn’t kidding! Obviously we didn’t buy this house for the kitchen. It was built in the 80′s and didn’t look like much had changed since then….including the appliances!! There were cherry cabinets, and short upper cabinets that connect to a soffit (totally gives away the age), tile flooring with a hunter green border, hunter green granite, brass hardware & that lovely wallpaper border. What’s not to like right?

Here it is with the wallpaper removed & fresh paint

This is pretty much how I’ve lived with it since June… I think I just put blinders on whenever I’d walk in there! I guess one saving grace was that this home has more separation between the kitchen & family room than newer houses do….so I wasn’t forced to stare at it all evening.

Anyhoo…in comes the new island

I couldn’t even post these pics cause the cherry cabinets just killed it

Ahhhh…..a sight for sore eyes
The hubs priming away….I’m already liking them better!

Notice we did manage to get a new fridge but we’re still dealing with that ancient oven/microwave combo! Changing out the appliances gets tricky when you plan on gutting & doing the kitchen from scratch so we’ve been reluctant to change too much yet

I knew this would happen..LOL! I appreciate my husbands willingness to paint, but he’s really not the best painter & by day two he was crying like a baby from his body aching! So here I am…injured hand and all….taking over! We decided at this point it would be best to have our painter Larry spray the doors and we just concentrated on painting the base cabinets, which worked out great because this gave them a more smooth satiny finish.

So here’s the end result…..
Drumroll please……..

New paint, new hardware & I added a rug to the floor to cover up as much of that tile as possible!

Ahhhhh….the power of white paint!!
Speaking of paint, we colormatched it to our existing trim color (which is custom)
The cost to build the island, paint & new hardware ended up around $700……. Not bad for having such an impact!!

Here’s a close up of how smooth the finish looks ( we used pearl finish)
I can actually say I like my kitchen now… It flows better with the rest of the house….
And you know I will keep going from here! I’m getting all kinds of ideas on how to continue improving it…..stayed tuned

H~

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